.s. government response has frankly been confusing. u.n. ambassador susan rice has said the attacks were not preplanned. secretary clinton said she had absolutely no information or reason to believe there is any basis to suggest that the u.s. ambassador was on an al qaeda hit list as a target. the state department said u.s. officials at that post never passed along the warning from the libyan government on militias and security in benghazi. now the administration appears to be backtracking a little bit, at least on the assertion about whether the attack was preplanned or not. but the take-away right now from the administration, when you take a step back and look at this information and the conflicts in the information, appears to be this. the americans on the ground failed to tell washington about the risks, so it isn't the state department's fault that they didn't stop it. well, why so much confusion? chris coons is on the senate foreign relations committee, he has been briefed on the situation. and first, sir, thank you very much for taking the time. let me start and ask you, since i k